Wait, can a dead Autognome be brought back to life via Mending?

[Damon_Tor]

While watching a video about autognomes and the relative difficulty of reviving a dead one, it occurred to me that there's no good reason an Autognome cannot be resurrected by the meding spell, assuming said Autognome has at least one hot dice remaining.

1. It requires no action from the Autognome, unlike other ways a PC would spend a hit dice. This means it can certainly be used while the Autognome is unconcious... Why not dead?
2. Other healing spells can only target creatures, and a creature becomes an object when it dies. Mending can be cast on objects.

Now, here's the sketchy part.

There is a general rule which prohibits dead creatures from recovering hitpoints. However, I'm going to lean heavily on my creature/object distinction here. While dead, a PC is an object, as as an object it is capable of recovering hitpoints as long as a game effects exists which is capable of doing so. Most dead PCs have no way of being targeted by a hitpoint recovery effect. But Autognomes do.

[Amnestic]

If the assumption is that the Autognome can somehow choose to spend a hit dice while dead (which even if RAW - not sure about that, frankly - is guaranteed not RAI), then yes, they would gain hit points. But they're still dead.

Objects can have hit points, after all. The hit point restoration might restore damage to the body but it can't bring you back to life. You're fixing an object, not changing the dead body back into a creature.

[Psyren]

They're not actually that much more difficult to revive than anyone else; the only spell that doesn't work is Reincarnate. Revivify, Raise Dead, Resurrection and True Resurrection all work.

People coming to 5e from prior editions often make the mistake that Raise Dead doesn't work on constructs, but it does here.

(The much bigger problem for them is Heal.)

[JonBeowulf]

<snip>
There is a general rule which prohibits dead creatures from recovering hitpoints. However, I'm going to lean heavily on my creature/object distinction here. While dead, a PC is an object, as as an object it is capable of recovering hitpoints as long as a game effects exists which is capable of doing so.
By this interpretation, any dead PC can recover hit points via Mending since they all become objects.

Also this:

Objects can have hit points, after all. The hit point restoration might restore damage to the body but it can't bring you back to life. You're fixing an object, not changing the dead body back into a creature.
It's a "nope" at my table.

[RogueJK]

While watching a video about autognomes and the relative difficulty of reviving a dead one

What difficulty?

Revivify, Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection all specify that they restore life to a dead creature. Autognomes are creatures.

Some of these also specify that they don't work on Undead, but Autognomes are not Undead, they're Constructs. There's no prohibition about their use on other creature types than Undead.


The Reincarnate spell is the only spell of this type that specifies that it must be a Humanoid, so it wouldn't work on PCs whose race makes them a Construct/Fey/Ooze/etc. But that spell's wording is the exception, not the norm.

[Damon_Tor]

By this interpretation, any dead PC can recover hit points via Mending since they all become objects.

Mending doesn't usually restore hitpoints.